03/26/2016: Green Bank’s Quiet Zone gets mobile service

For years, Green Bank has been known as the Quiet Zone but thanks to AT&T some parts are about to get loud.

Green Bank West Virginia is home to the world’s largest steerable telescope and it’s located at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Pocahontas County. For more than 20 years, the enormous telescope has prevented residents and vacationers at Snowshoe Mountain Resort to function without the use of cell service.

“The GBT is huge, it’s 2.3 acres of collecting area. If you want to think about it, it means you can pick up the entire Mountaineers Stadium and stick it right inside the dish,” said Dr. Karen O’Neil, the observatory’s site director. “The Green Bank Telescope is an astronomical instrument. We use it to go out, we use it to look up at the sky and to try to understand the big questions of how did we get here, and to really understand how galaxies formed and how the universe form and how we formed.”